Sacred Craft

Just a quick ramble about the event. I think the Swayloholics Anonymous was happening at the same time. Anyone go?

Anyway, I only made it to the Expo on Saturday. That was pretty much enough for me, but I would have liked to see JP in the discussion about imported surfboards, etc. When I first walked in, I thought to myself that it would be a quick visit. It was pretty packed, and it was basically a mini trade show vibe. You can only ooh and ahh so much. Still, I wanted to wait to see the panel of "legends" and perhaps see Andreini in the shaper's booth. The booth was the full fishbowl effect. A bunch of people climbing on each other to get a glimpse into a couple of windows. It dawned on me that many of the people have very likely never actually seen a surfboard being built. I've seen my share so I didn't look on for extended periods of time. It was nice to see the first attacks on the blank and then cruise by later to contrast that with the finish work. I did end up seeing Andreini's shape and it was very tight indeed. As I posted before, the shape-off was a little weird in terms of judging guys based on being closest to the original shape. Though it wasn't a very intriguing element for me, I do think it was good to illustrate the fact that hand-built surfboards are still here and always will be. I hope it made some people appreciate it more and perhaps not take it for granted. For those who've only been off-the-rack buyers, maybe they'll create a relationship with a shaper and get a custom surfboard built personally for them.

Actually, it was at the shaper's booth that I connected with Erik Olson of Breaks Selection. As many of you know, Erik builds some very fine-looking surfboards and is a really nice guy to boot. Talking to him was a good time. In fact, for me it was the conversations and connections with people that made the event better. I spent a fair amount of time with the hull heads. Brian Hilbers of Fineline launched right into conversation and was a lot of fun to talk with. So was Kirk Putnam and a cat from Mollusk Venice (can't remember his name, good guy). There were some incredible looking blades in their stall.

Bought a few bars of eco-wax, connected with Toby (I'm supposed to meet him at 10am for the new shape; we'll see if it happens), told Sam George how much I liked his TSJ article about Sao Tome, asked John Peck a question, and that was pretty much it. Overall a pretty decent event. I'm sure it took a lot to make it happen. Bottom line, it was about surfing and surfboards; easy to complain, but worth it anyway.